【文/周波，譯/觀察者網(wǎng) 韓樺】
忘掉貿(mào)易戰(zhàn)吧。如果21世紀(jì)最嚴(yán)峻的挑戰(zhàn)是如何尋找中美競(jìng)爭(zhēng)中共存的辦法，真正的危險(xiǎn)則是一場(chǎng)意外事件引發(fā)了沖突，造成雙方都始料不及，也難以把控的后果。最可能的潛在爆發(fā)點(diǎn)當(dāng)屬中國(guó)南海。
《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》2月3日頭版刊登評(píng)論文章“中美能夠競(jìng)爭(zhēng)共存”
中方堅(jiān)信，并在其2014年的立場(chǎng)文件中闡明，中國(guó)對(duì)南海諸島及其附近海域擁有“無(wú)可爭(zhēng)辯的主權(quán)”。中國(guó)政府表示其立場(chǎng)具有堅(jiān)實(shí)的歷史和法理依據(jù)，因?yàn)椤爸袊?guó)是最早發(fā)現(xiàn)、命名、勘探和開(kāi)發(fā)南海諸島資源的國(guó)家，也是最早并持續(xù)對(duì)南海諸島實(shí)行主權(quán)管轄的國(guó)家”。
一些沿海國(guó)家對(duì)此持有不同意見(jiàn)—最明顯的是菲律賓，也包括越南，文萊，馬來(lái)西亞，以及最近表示異議的印度尼西亞。他們基于本國(guó)歷史和地理的記述，也提出其領(lǐng)土聲索，這些聲索有時(shí)相互矛盾。
而美國(guó)則一直宣稱不在這些主權(quán)爭(zhēng)議上選邊站隊(duì)，并聲稱它只想確保地區(qū)水域的航行自由。
但是中國(guó)以多種方式譴責(zé)美國(guó)這種自詡的“中立”為虛偽。美國(guó)學(xué)者傅泰林（Taylor Fravel）也指出，美國(guó)政策中似乎有一種固有的矛盾：一方面聲稱要置身地區(qū)爭(zhēng)議之外，另一方面在該地區(qū)的行動(dòng)又不斷抬頭，尤其是在美國(guó)認(rèn)定中國(guó)為“該地區(qū)緊張局勢(shì)加劇的根源”之后。
此外，每當(dāng)美國(guó)軍艦駛進(jìn)中國(guó)控制的南海島礁附近,或者進(jìn)入中國(guó)軍艦巡邏的水域時(shí)，危險(xiǎn)相遇的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)就會(huì)加劇。
2001年，美國(guó)海軍偵察機(jī)和中國(guó)戰(zhàn)斗機(jī)相撞，造成中國(guó)飛行員犧牲。中方當(dāng)時(shí)扣留了美方飛行員和機(jī)組成員。華盛頓方面并未正式對(duì)事件和犧牲飛行員道歉和負(fù)責(zé),但在表示了兩次“非常遺憾”之后，緊張的外交對(duì)峙才慢慢得以化解。此后，在2001年，接著是2009年，2013年，2014年，2015年和2018年，中美軍艦和軍機(jī)在南海多次近距離相遇。
特朗普?qǐng)?zhí)政期間，美國(guó)海軍明顯增加了在中國(guó)的主權(quán)水域“航行自由”行動(dòng)的次數(shù)，這些行動(dòng)增加了沖突的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。2018年9月，美國(guó)海軍驅(qū)逐艦“迪凱特號(hào)”和中國(guó)海軍驅(qū)逐艦“蘭州號(hào)”在南海險(xiǎn)些相撞，最近距離僅45碼（約41米），可謂近年來(lái)最驚險(xiǎn)遭遇。
如果今天在中國(guó)南海再發(fā)生一次碰撞，中美雙方絕不會(huì)像2001年那樣容易解決沖突。在華盛頓進(jìn)攻性地故意激化同北京的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)，但一個(gè)不斷崛起的中國(guó)只會(huì)更加堅(jiān)定地捍衛(wèi)自身主權(quán)。修昔底德指出，戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)動(dòng)因不外乎三者：恐懼、榮譽(yù)和利益，中國(guó)南海一應(yīng)俱全。
中國(guó)近年來(lái)大力發(fā)展武器裝備和海軍艦隊(duì)并在南海建立哨所一定程度上促使了特朗普政府在其2017年《國(guó)家安全戰(zhàn)略報(bào)告》和2018年《國(guó)防戰(zhàn)略報(bào)告》中，定性中國(guó)為“戰(zhàn)略競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手”，美國(guó)還稱中國(guó)是“修正主義國(guó)家”。
中國(guó)繼而在2019年發(fā)布的國(guó)防白皮書(shū)中回敬美國(guó)是“奉行單邊主義政策”和“挑起和加劇大國(guó)競(jìng)爭(zhēng)”。
雙邊競(jìng)爭(zhēng)似在升溫，那么問(wèn)題來(lái)了：中美如何避免沖突，或者一場(chǎng)新的冷戰(zhàn)？答案恰恰是，重溫冷戰(zhàn)。
冷戰(zhàn)初期，美蘇戰(zhàn)機(jī)毫不遲疑向?qū)Ψ介_(kāi)火.。因?yàn)榘亓值牡匚缓蜄|西柏林分割問(wèn)題，兩國(guó)在1948年，1958年和1961年發(fā)生過(guò)三次危機(jī)。1962年10月爆發(fā)的古巴導(dǎo)彈危機(jī)把當(dāng)時(shí)的兩個(gè)超級(jí)大國(guó)帶到了核戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)邊緣。由于一些還算適用的協(xié)議，加上牢固可靠的緊急通訊熱線，雙方避免了直接沖突。這說(shuō)明盡管冷戰(zhàn)期間雙方手段有限，但在衡量全面沖突之利害后，死對(duì)頭也能建立信任。
1972年，華盛頓和莫斯科簽署了《防止公海及其上空事件的協(xié)定》，在達(dá)成的諸多事項(xiàng)中包括承諾使用清晰的通訊信號(hào)，以防止任意一方“騷擾或危及”即便已受到監(jiān)視的船只，“最大程度小心、謹(jǐn)慎地接近”公海上的艦船。協(xié)定極大地降低了冷戰(zhàn)時(shí)期美蘇危險(xiǎn)相遇的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)，后來(lái)雖然沒(méi)能防止1988年2月發(fā)生的兩艘蘇聯(lián)軍艦在黑海撞擊兩艘美國(guó)軍艦?zāi)菢拥睦馐录珦?jù)時(shí)任美國(guó)海軍戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)學(xué)院法學(xué)教授佩德羅佐2012年發(fā)布的一份報(bào)告，在協(xié)定簽署后的兩年之內(nèi)，每年的意外事件發(fā)生次數(shù)由100次顯著降低到了40次。
蘇聯(lián)和美國(guó)在冷戰(zhàn)時(shí)期都能設(shè)法避免熱戰(zhàn)發(fā)生，相比之下，中美關(guān)系遠(yuǎn)不及那么對(duì)抗，因此今天雙方仍有理由對(duì)雙邊關(guān)系保持一定信心。
中美目前的軍事競(jìng)爭(zhēng)囿于西太平洋，因此有別于美蘇在全球范圍內(nèi)的軍備競(jìng)賽。美國(guó)以為中國(guó)想把他趕出西太平洋，中國(guó)則認(rèn)為美國(guó)不僅想阻止其正當(dāng)合理發(fā)展遠(yuǎn)洋海軍的雄心，還想把中國(guó)的影響力限定在亞洲大陸東海岸以內(nèi)。
雖然中國(guó)以令人驚嘆的速度壯大軍事實(shí)力，卻沒(méi)有任何想取代美國(guó)成為世界警察的欲望。中國(guó)軍隊(duì)遠(yuǎn)離本土的軍事行動(dòng)，例如在亞丁灣、非洲大陸等，都僅限于應(yīng)對(duì)如海盜、維和及自然災(zāi)害等威脅。反之，美國(guó)海軍則是定期派軍艦到亞太海域蓄意“挑戰(zhàn)”——用他們自己的話說(shuō)——某些沿海國(guó)家的“過(guò)度海洋聲索”。
哪怕是最右翼的觀察家也不會(huì)把中美描述成真正的敵人。在去年10月的香山論壇—中國(guó)版“香格里拉對(duì)話”會(huì)上，國(guó)防部長(zhǎng)魏鳳和表示，“中美軍事關(guān)系總體穩(wěn)定，但也面臨不少困難和挑戰(zhàn)”。
相比冷戰(zhàn)時(shí)期的蘇聯(lián)和美國(guó)，中美之間現(xiàn)有的互信措施要“原始”得多。從某種意義上講，這或許是一種安慰，說(shuō)明兩國(guó)關(guān)系還沒(méi)那么糟，因此不需要那些多措施。但是，從長(zhǎng)遠(yuǎn)來(lái)看，中美兩國(guó)還是有必要建立更多的互信措施。
1998年，中美兩國(guó)基于“相互尊重的精神”，簽署了《關(guān)于建立加強(qiáng)海上軍事安全磋商機(jī)制的協(xié)定》，以“建立一個(gè)穩(wěn)定的雙邊海軍和空軍磋商渠道”。2014年，雙方又達(dá)成不具法律約束力的《海上意外相遇規(guī)則》和《?？障嘤霭踩袨闇?zhǔn)則諒解備忘錄》。
即便中美兩國(guó)在1998年簽署了協(xié)議，之后兩國(guó)軍機(jī)仍然相撞;2014年的兩份準(zhǔn)則簽署之后，兩軍艦機(jī)也有過(guò)數(shù)次危險(xiǎn)接近。換言之，僅靠互信措施，既不能避免意外事件，也不能消除戰(zhàn)略互疑，過(guò)去如此，現(xiàn)在也一樣。但是，互信措施依然是在中美利益分歧下防止雙方擦槍走火，繼續(xù)發(fā)展工作關(guān)系的基礎(chǔ)。
中國(guó)軍力正在繼續(xù)發(fā)展，與美國(guó)軍力差距逐步縮小，因此雙方亟需更多規(guī)則，不僅適用兩國(guó)已合作的打擊海盜或者搶險(xiǎn)救災(zāi)領(lǐng)域，而且要應(yīng)用于太空探索、網(wǎng)絡(luò)空間和人工智能等領(lǐng)域。
中國(guó)人傳統(tǒng)上篤信陰陽(yáng)學(xué)說(shuō)，因此認(rèn)為競(jìng)爭(zhēng)與合作并不矛盾。但是這對(duì)美國(guó)來(lái)說(shuō)卻似乎是個(gè)問(wèn)題。華盛頓和一些西方國(guó)家的官僚們，對(duì)于中國(guó)沒(méi)有亦步亦趨緊隨美國(guó)，或至少更“民主”一些都表示沮喪。但中國(guó)何時(shí)拍過(guò)胸脯說(shuō)要變得跟美國(guó)一樣？中國(guó)不像美國(guó)又有何妨？競(jìng)爭(zhēng)中共存，仍有可能。
（觀察者網(wǎng)譯自《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》，翻頁(yè)閱讀英文原文）
China and America Can Compete and Coexist
Forget the trade war. If the gravest challenge of the 21st century is finding ways that China and the United States can coexist competitively, the real danger is that an unexpected incident might trigger a conflict that neither side has anticipated or could possibly control. The likeliest potential flash point is the South China Sea.
China believes, and has said as much in a 2014 position paper, that it has “indisputable sovereignty” over the South China Sea islands and the adjacent waters. This claim is solidly grounded in history and law, the government argues, because “China was the first country to discover, name, explore and exploit the resources of the South China Sea islands and the first to continuously exercise sovereign powers over them.”
Some coastal states in the region disagree — most notably perhaps the Philippines, but also Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and more recently, Indonesia. They defend other, sometimes competing, territorial claims, based on their own accounts of history and geography.
The United States, for its part, has historically vowed not to take sides in these disputes over sovereignty, arguing that it only wants to protect free navigation in the region’s waters.
But China has denounced America’s professed commitment to neutrality as hypocritical in several ways. And as academics like M. Taylor Fravel have argued, there seems to be something of an inherent contradiction in the United States’ policy: between its claim to want to stay out of local disputes and the resurgence of its operations in the region, particularly since it identified one country — China — as “the primary source of increased tensions” there.
What’s more, whenever an American vessel sails close to islands or rocks controlled by China, in waters patrolled by Chinese ships, the risk of a dangerous encounter rises.
In 2001, a Chinese fighter jet collided with a United States Navy surveillance plane, killing the Chinese pilot. A tense diplomatic standoff over the detained American pilot and crew was resolved after Washington said, twice, that it was “very sorry” — without officially accepting responsibility for the accident and death. Since then, there have been quite a few close encounters between American and Chinese military vessels and aircraft, again in 2001, and then in 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2018.
Under the Trump administration, the United States Navy has increased its freedom-of-navigation operations, including in waters that China claims as its own, and those maneuvers increase the risk of an incident. The American destroyer Decatur and the Chinese destroyer Lanzhou narrowly avoided a collision, by just 45 yards, in September 2018 — the hairiest encounter in years.
Should another collision occur today, it won’t be resolved as easily as the one in 2001 was. An ever-rising China can only be more determined to safeguard what it sees as its sovereign rights, especially when Washington has deliberately intensified its competition with Beijing, and rather aggressively. Thucydides identified three motivations — fear, honor and interest — as the main causes of a war, and the South China Sea features them all.
Partly because China has ramped up its military arsenal and fleet in recent years, as well as built up outposts in the South China Sea, the Trump administration has called it a “strategic competitor,” including in the 2017 National Security Strategy paper and the 2018 National Defense Strategy. Washington has also said that Beijing is a “revisionist power.”
China, in turn, released a defense white paper last summer that described the United States as having “adopted unilateral policies” and “provoked and intensified competition among major countries.”
With the temperature seeming to rise on both sides, how can a conflict, or something like a new cold war, between China and the United States be avoided? Precisely by looking at the actual Cold War.
In the early years of that protracted standoff, American and Soviet aircrafts didn’t hesitate to fire at one another. There were three crises over the status of divided Berlin, in 1948, 1958 and 1961. The Cuban missile crisis brought the two superpowers to the brink of nuclear war in October 1962. And yet outright conflict was averted, thanks to a few modest agreements and well-established hotlines for emergency communication. Even bitter enemies can build trust, and with imperfect tools, when they measure the stakes of a full-on clash.
In 1972, Washington and Moscow signed the Agreement on the Prevention of Incidents on and Over the High Seas — vowing, among other things, to use clear communication signals, avoid “embarrassing or endangering” even ships under their surveillance and exercise “the greatest caution and prudence in approaching” vessels on the high seas. The accord didn’t prevent two Soviet ships from bumping into two American ships in Soviet territorial waters in February 1988, but that was an outlier incident, and the agreement does seem to have drastically reduced the overall risk of dangerous encounters. Within two years of its entry into force, according to a 2012 paper by Raul (Pete) Pedrozo, then a law professor at the United States Naval War College, the number of incidents per year had dropped from 100 to 40.
If the Soviet Union and the United States managed to avoid a major conflict during the Cold War, then some degree of confidence seems in order today about the far less confrontational relations between China and the United States.
Unlike the military rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, which was global, any military competition between the United States and China is confined to the western Pacific. America thinks that China wants to drive it out of the region; China believes America wants to block its legitimate ambition to develop a blue-water navy and hopes instead to confine China’s influence to the eastern coast of continental Asia.
Yet even though China has built up its military capacity at an awesome speed, it has shown no appetite to replace the United States as world policeman. China’s operations far from its shores, such as in the Gulf of Aden or on the African continent, are limited to addressing threats such as piracy or participating in peacekeeping and disaster relief. The United States Navy, on the other hand, regularly sends ships to the Asia-Pacific region in a deliberate effort to “challenge” — its own term — the “excessive maritime claims” of some coastal states.
Still, even the wariest of observers have yet to describe China and the United States as actual enemies. At the last Xiangshan Forum in October — the Chinese government’s version of the Shangri-La Dialogue — Wei Fenghe, the defense minister, said, “The China-United States military relationship is generally stable, but we are confronted with many difficulties and challenges.”
The confidence-building measures that exist today between China and the United States are rudimentary compared to those between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War. In a way, this may be a comforting fact: a suggestion that relations haven’t become so hostile as to require many such measures. Yet more of them will be necessary in the long run.
In 1998, China and the United States, acting in “the spirit of mutual respect,” signed the Military Maritime Consultative Agreement to “establish a stable channel for consultations between their respective maritime and air forces.” In 2014 came the nonbinding Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea and the Memorandum of Understanding regarding the Rules of Behavior for Safety of Air and Maritime Encounters.
Chinese and American aircraft nonetheless collided after the 1998 agreement, and there have been dangerously close calls even since the two later sets of guidelines. In other words, confidence-building measures alone can neither prevent incidents nor overcome strategic distrust — today no more than in the past. And yet they remain essential to preventing any mishap from escalating and to developing working relations between China and America despite their divergent interests.
As China’s military strength continues to grow and it closes the gap with the United States, both sides will almost certainly need to put more rules in place, not only in areas like antipiracy or disaster relief — where the two countries already have been cooperating — but also regarding space exploration, cyberspace and artificial intelligence.
For Chinese people, who traditionally believe in yin and yang, the notion that rivals can cooperate isn’t a contradiction in terms. It seems to be a problem for America, however. Officials in Washington and other Western capitals have expressed dismay that China hasn’t become more like the United States, or at least more democratic. But did China ever pledge to become like the United States? And so what if it hasn’t become that? Competitive coexistence is still possible.
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